Claws
by Yawgmoth
Summary: Tess Richards, a starting trainer, is rescued by a stranger with a Pokeball who claims he is not a trainer. The secret past behind this oddity is far more important than either of them guess, and threatens the safety of the entire world.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: Hello, everyone. I've returned to (after a _long_ break) and I hope I can get back into stride. For those of you who are reading my other story, I have_ not_ given up on it. I've just hit a dead end, and hopefully working on this story will help me through it.

I have in the past been somewhat contemptuous of people who write the type of story I am now embarking on (The more clever among you will realize what type that is, exactly). In fact, that was a large part of the reason I decided to do it—I wanted to see if it was possible to write a good one. I hope you all like it, and don't give up on The End Days, because I might just have an idea or two coming.

Enjoy!

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Nighttime can be a quiet time. In the winter, for example, when new-fallen snow settles a hush on the dead landscape. Or in small towns, where children obey curfews and their parents believe in early to bed, early to rise. Nighttime is quiet in such places.

In Ilex forest, the night is loud. Crickets and bug Pokémon fill the air with their small noises. Hoothoots and the occasional Noctowl sound their ghostly voices. The occasional squeal of a creature taken by a night hunter punctuates the sound.

The noise frightened Tess Richards. She drew her coat more tightly around her, her left hand resting on one of the Pokéballs at her belt. She knew it was silly to be frightened; after all, they were only noises, but _still_…

She thought she would take out a Pokémon. Just to be safe.

Tess gripped the ball tightly, and pulled. There was a small _clik!_ as the clamps on the belt released it. She hadn't wanted a trainer belt—it was ugly, and more importantly it marked her as a rookie trainer, following the rules like a good little girl—but her father had insisted. He had accepted that his daughter would want to try training, but he was damned if his little girl was going without a belt. He saw it as a safety issue—her Pokémon were her best protection. It was harder to steal from a trainer belt, and he wanted her to be able to get at her Pokéballs as quickly as possible should she need them.

Tess, thirteen years old, of course thought her dad was a dork. She loved him, but sometimes he just had no idea of what was and wasn't cool. Tess liked to think that _she_ certainly did. She could usually talk her parents into letting her wear the latest fashions and styles, but about the belt they had been adamant.

She turned the ball over in her hand. This one was a Zubat she'd caught in the cave outside Azalea Town. She knew Zubat weren't very strong Pokémon, but she figured it would better in the dark than her others. Tess peered into the darkness as she fumbled for the release button on the ball. She turned a little to her left and froze.

Two green, alien-looking eyes were glowing in the underbrush. They were about two feet off the ground, and Tess thought she could see a hint of some large bulk behind them.

Slowly, her hand trembling, Tess located the release button on the ball. It popped open with a flash that revealed a huge, ancient Parasect. The mushroom on its back was vast, perhaps five feet high, and almost completely white, the spots on it having nearly eclipsed the red coloring. The bug's body was overgrown with root-like filaments that twined around it like ivy on an old building. Its face was obscured by several smaller mushrooms that had sprouted on its head.

It recoiled at the flash, giving a gurgling, grating cry that made Tess shudder with fear and disgust. She backpedaled rapidly, tripping over a mossy stump and falling over backwards onto the soft soil.

Tess saw the dark outline of the thing shambling towards her, its huge claws scissoring open and closed as it searched for her. She scrambled away from it, crying out in a choked voice.

"Zubat! Supersonic!"

She heard the bat Pokémon flutter towards the Parasect and give a high-pitched screech she could barely hear. Tess watched the dark shape that was the Parasect swing a large claw upwards and bat her tiny Pokémon out of the air. She drew it back into the Pokéball and scrambled to her feet.

The bug Pokémon turned its hideous face towards her once more, and Tess panicked. Not bothering to reattach Zubat's ball, she fled through the forest. She heard the Parasect pursuing her relentlessly. Its shambling gait belied its eerie speed. Despite its huge, top-heavy mass, she could hear it behind her, never losing ground. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the thing scuttling rapidly up and over logs, bushes, and other obstacles she had had to go around. It was more adept than she was at moving through the forest, and she was desperately afraid that it would catch her before long.

With her hands in front of her face to shield her eyes from whippy branches, Tess didn't see the man in the small clearing until she ran right into him. He was fairly tall and thin, with hair that looked pure white in the moonlight. The moon didn't provide enough light to see much color, but she could see his eyes quite clearly. They were bright green.

The first thing that struck her as odd about him (out of many more things she would begin to notice later) was that though she had plowed into him at top speed, she didn't bowl him over. He swayed slightly on his feet, but stayed standing, and whirled around to look at her.

"Please!" she sobbed, not caring who he was. If he was a murderer, well…she was dead either way, wasn't she? "Please, help! There's a—"

He threw himself into her, cutting her off and knocking them both flat on the ground as a massive claw swiped the air where her head had been. It moved blindingly fast, but the man was faster. His hand shot up and grabbed the Parasect's arm. Giving a quick jerk of his arm, he flipped the Pokémon over, sending it crashing into a moss-covered oak tree. It gave another hideous cry, flipping itself right-side up. The man faced it, crouched into a fighting stance.

The insect stood still for a moment, the shadows from the light of the waxing moon making it look even more monstrous and sinister. Suddenly, it rippled the mushroom on its back in a rapid motion, hurling a cloud of silvery pollen towards the man.

Tess knew a little about Parasects, and the types of attacks they used. She knew that if the stranger breathed in the spores he would be immobilized, sedated, or severely poisoned. The fight would be over before it had begun. She held her breath as the cloud shot outwards…

…And right through the space where the strange man had been an instant earlier. Tess blinked, her brain trying to make sense of what her eyes had just told her. The man, moving in a blur, had leaped seven feet straight up and into the low branches of one of the trees.

The Parasect sent another puff of spores into the branches where the man had landed, but he moved again, avoiding the toxin. The creature tried again, blasting a massive cloud into the trees nearby. But the man seemed to have vanished.

The Pokémon ran its eyes over the tree cover, the eldritch glow lighting up a tangle of vines and leaves. Giving up at last, it turned its gaze back on the clearing. It noticed Tess again and started to skitter towards her.

Tess frantically scrambled backwards in a weird crabwalk that seemed to mimic the Parasect's movement. Her mind was screaming, but terror had closed her windpipe and all that came out were a series of choked whimpers. Watching the man fight, she had hoped for a moment that she might be alright, but now he had abandoned her, and she would die.

Alone, in the dark, and trying to scream.

She had given up all hope and prepared to die at the ugly monster's claws when she saw the man drop down from the trees behind the Parasect. He landed lightly, making no noise at all. The Parasect was about to grab her when the man seized its back legs and heaved it to the side. It crashed into a thorny shrub and let out its keening cry again.

It righted itself, but the strange man gave it no time to disperse another spore cloud. He landed a powerful uppercut to the bottom of the monster's face. It reared backwards, gurgling, and he drove a fist hard into the very center of its underbelly. There was a sickening crunch, and it toppled over.

This time, it didn't right itself.

Tess got to her feet. "Is it dead?" she asked, moving towards the twitching thing.

The man threw out a hand to stop her. "Don't go near that—"

She never heard the rest of his sentence, the eruption of spores from the fallen creature drowning the world in black unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Prospero stepped out of the hotel into the dim light of the early morning, feeling mildly annoyed. Not only had he been forced to tangle with an ancient, strong Parasect, but the stupid girl he had rescued had gone and stepped right up to it, getting a face full of sleep Spores. He had spent all night, when he should have been sleeping, hauling her through the forest to Goldenrod. And she still hadn't woken up by then, so he had had to check her into the Pokémon Center.

Life was so very complicated sometimes.

That was why Prospero tried to avoid it as much as he could. Life in general was fine, but the day-to-day scheduled grind of society was not up his alley. Luckily, thanks to Pokémon training, living a life of travel was a valid option. There were plenty of well-marked routes, Pokémon Centers where anyone could stay for free, as long as they didn't stay more than a week at a time, and perhaps most importantly, plenty of people outside the city life in case he wanted human companionship.

Prospero smiled. It seemed that training _was_ good for something.

He personally had no use for it. Once, he had been a trainer, like so many other little kids. But that was years ago.

Before _her_.

Prospero touched the single Pokéball that rested on his belt, remembering.

After finding _her_, he had released his Pokémon. Those of them that hadn't chosen to go into the wild he had given away. He wondered sometimes about their new trainers.

Prospero had never trained again. Not on principle; he simply had no desire for it anymore. But he had found himself unable to give up the life. He had tried, for a while. He had found a desk job and rented an apartment with his winnings from his life as a trainer. But before long, he felt the pull of the road again, the call of those winding routes that stretched on almost forever, the journey that could never end.

Besides, _she_ would surely have driven him mad before long in his office life.

Now he traveled, earning money where he could, hunting with _her_ help when he couldn't. It was a good life, but not a great one. It lacked the burning urgency of training, the sense of a quest and a purpose. Training had a goal, a Holy Grail. The dusty halls of the Elite Four, the top slot of the Archives which read **World Champion**, the tournaments and victories and fame—these images soared in the minds of trainers, the goal and the reason and the journey all in one. Compared to that, what he did was only so much aimless wandering.

But he could never return to training. That much was for certain. Not when _she_ raged soundlessly at the sight, even the thought of a trainer. Prospero often wished that _she_ would just give it a rest already.

_Lighten up_, he thought. _Yeah, that's what _she_ needs. To just lighten up._

Prospero realized with a start that he had walked right past the Department Store he was looking for. He turned around and went inside. The air conditioning blasted in his face, chilling him immediately. He looked around for the counter where a sign proclaimed that Training-Related Items were sold there. Prospero strode over to it, listening to the click of his boots on the mirror-bright tiles.

As he approached, the redheaded saleslady flashed him a canned smile and asked how she could help him.

"I'd like four Super Potions, three Antidotes, and three Paralyze Heals, please," he told her. His supply was running low.

The woman opened the glass case behind the counter and sorted through it for the requested items. She brought them to the counter. "And would you like any Pokéballs as well?" she asked, holding one up. "We just recently received a shipment of Great Balls…"

At the sight of the ball, _her_ voice filled his head, screaming a barely coherent thought.

_the light the trap im caught the light it hurts im caged the cage the light_

He forced it down, willing himself to stay in control. "No thanks," he said. "I'm not a trainer."

The saleslady looked pointedly at the single ball on his belt.

Prospero frowned. "It's my brother's," he said. "For protection."

"I see," replied the lady, ringing up his purchases. "That comes to $3700, please." Prospero reached into his pocket for his wallet and counted out the total. He handed it over and took the bag, putting his purchases away in his backpack.

Outside in the early-morning light, Prospero thought about what he wanted to do next. He didn't want to press on with so little sleep; he thought he would stay the night in a hotel and get to sleep very early to make up for last night's slog through the forest. That left the whole day to think of something to do, though.

He wandered through the city as the day brightened, eventually stopping in front of the Goldenrod Tournament Building.

Every large town or city had a tournament center nowadays, sometimes more than one. There was serious money to be made in the training industry, and a large chunk of it came from tourneys. Trainers would place a bet on their team and be randomly paired off against another entrant. They competed in open-air arenas in front of large audiences, who were themselves a huge part of the betting. Trainers could choose to compete in arenas which gave them a disadvantage, like using water Pokémon in an environment suited to fire-types, in order to drive up the odds on their bet. There were one-Pokémon matches, three-Pokémon matches, lone matches, double-or-nothing matches, day-long matches, matches where a trainer faced off against Pokémon owned by the "house" (house matches were extremely popular), and anything else the organizers could dream up. Everyone involved took it _very_ seriously.

"Hey! It's you!"

Prospero recognized the voice of the girl he had encountered in the forest last night. Groaning softly, he turned around.

The girl was standing there, waving cheerfully at him. Prospero sized her up. She had long black hair tied in a single braid down her back, and clear blue eyes. She was short, and looked to be in her early teens. Her face was oval-shaped, with a small nose and mouth. She was wearing the current "hip" style: lots of bright colors with a black "trim". She had a white shirt and bright green pants, with black shoes, socks, and backpack, and an unzipped black vest over the shirt. She looked energetic, athletic, and, Prospero thought, quite a bit less helpless and weak now that she wasn't sobbing in terror or dead unconscious.

Three Pokéballs were clamped to her belt.

"My name's Tess Richards," she said. "I just wanted to thank you for helping me out last night."

"No problem," he answered.

She waited for him to say something else. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to, she asked, "What's your name?"

"Oh—Prospero," he said.

"Where are you headed?" she persisted.

Prospero sighed under his breath. This girl certainly didn't give up. "Ecruteak, I guess. After that, I don't really—"

"Great!" she interrupted. "Me too! We can go together!"

"What? No," said Prospero, confused. "Not happening."

Tess looked hurt. "Why not?"

_Oh boy,_ thought Prospero. _Isn't _that_ a hell of a question_. Aloud he said "You're too young and inexperienced. You'll get hurt, or at the very least slow me down."

Now the hurt expression changed to one of anger. "Oh yeah? I'll bet I'm a better trainer than you! You only have one Pokémon. Come on, I'll challenge you! If I win, I come!"

Prospero rolled his eyes. That was one thing he definitely did _not_ miss about training: the way trainers settled a dispute through a battle. It was as if the fact that your Pokémon could beat up theirs made you morally superior.

"Sorry," he said, though he was not. "I'm not a trainer."

"Don't give me that," she said. "You have a trainer belt, a training backpack, and a Pokéball. You're even dressed for traveling!"

Prospero sighed. He knew that everything about him marked him a trainer, but why couldn't she take his word for it? Well, there was one way he could get rid of her. It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be better than her tagging along after him.

"How about this," he said. "I know you won't believe that I'm not a trainer. So what do you say to me versus your team. If I can beat them all, you stop pestering me. If one of them can defeat me, you come along. Deal?"

Tess paused, thinking about it. She remembered how he had beaten the Parasect last night. It had seemed monstrous then, but in the light of day, she thought it might be a lot less menacing. And one guy against three Pokémon?

"Deal," she said finally. "Let's sign up. I won't go too hard; I don't want any of my Pokémon to hurt you too badly."

_What a coincidence,_ thought Prospero. _I was just thinking that I wouldn't want to hurt _them.

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"Ladies and Gentlemen!" the announcer' voice boomed out over the stands. "To_day_, we have a _ve_ry special challenge! M_is_ter Prospero Tori will be taking on the en_tire_ team of Miss Tess Richards—with_out_ using _a_ny _Pok_émon!"

The crowd fell dead silent. Tess, waiting for the steel doors to open and reveal their arena, thought the people watching had probably never seen anything like this before. They probably wouldn't know what to make of it.

_Not_, Tess admitted to herself, _that I know what to make of it either_. She was trying to reconcile her fear of seriously harming her rescuer with the thrill of a challenge. This guy was clearly a fighter, and if he thought he could take on three Pokémon, well, there must be something special about him.

Who could resist a challenge like that? Certainly not Tess Richards.

She felt her competitive nature rising as always before a contest. She had only battled about fifteen trainers so far, but she boasted a fairly impressive win/loss record. She had only been defeated four times, three of them by seasoned trainers looking for easy training for their Pokémon. Tess thought of herself as a pretty fair battler.

She gripped a Pokéball in her left hand. She had her battling strategy all worked out. First off, she would use Zubat to try to gauge her opponent's strength, and maybe even find a weakness to exploit later in the fight. Depending on how he fought Zubat, and how long it took him to do it, she would decide which of her other two Pokémon to use next. She didn't think he'd be able to take out two, but if he did she would use her last Pokémon to try and outlast him and wear him down.

The doors slid open and Tess strode out into the arena, to applause from the stands. She blinked.

Tess had agreed to let Prospero pick the arena, since he was at a disadvantage, having to fight a whole team of Pokémon. She had been prepared for baking heat and a flaming arena, a giant pool, or even an icy cave.

But she had not been expecting something that looked like a child's jungle gym.

The arena was a mass of ladders, cables, and twisting steel pipes. She could barely see through it to observe her opponent as he entered the other side of the arena to thunderous applause. He walked to the center of the arena and crouched into a fighting stance. Tess sized him up.

He had ash-blonde hair that looked a little long for a guy, and he was dressed in a black cloth jumpsuit. His face was pale and angular, almost predatory in a way. He was tall and rather thin, and not very muscular. Certainly nothing to suggest he was capable of battling three Pokémon by himself.

At his waist, he still carried that single Pokéball, attached to his clothes by a short, fine chain.

"I'm ready," he declared. The crowd burst into applause. They were wild for this man who thought he could defeat Pokémon. They wanted to see him fight. But even more, they wanted to see him defeated, his blood spilling onto the arena floor.

_Don't be so morbid_, Tess chided herself. Still, it was a feeling she couldn't shake, standing here in a pit fighting arena.

"Then so am I," she said, pressing the catch on Zubat's ball and tossing it into the maze of pipes.

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Prospero watched the ball hit the floor, and snapped his eyes shut to avoid being blinded by the flash. Even as he opened them again, he heard the girl calling out orders. "Zubat! Astonish!"

He saw the bat Pokémon flying towards him so fast he could barely register it. He flung himself to the side, but the Zubat still managed to clip him on the ribcage, spinning him around and backward.

"Zubat, Bite!" he heard her call out. He had seen this strategy before: overwhelm the opponent with a rapid series of attacks. But Prospero wasn't going down _that_ easily. He swung his foot in an arc above him, not bothering to try to stand up; the Zubat would just knock him down again. He felt his foot catch the Zubat on its side as it flew in for the attack.

"Astonish!"

Prospero flipped to his feet in time to backhand the Bat Pokémon to one side, inches from his face. It spun through the air for a moment, quickly stabilizing itself with a fluttering of its wings.

He crouched into his fighting stance again, watching the sightless Pokémon hovering a few feet away. Tess didn't try calling out another attack. She knew as well as Prospero did that the advantage of surprise had been lost. She considered her next move.

Abruplty, Tess yelled, "Zubat! Supersonic!"

The bat opened its mouth to emit the awful noise that disoriented and unbalanced anything unlucky enough to get the full blast of it. But Prospero did not intend for that to happen. He clamped his hands over his ears as tightly as he could.

Apparently, that was what Tess had been waiting for. He faintly heard her order another Astonish attack.

He moved his hands just a hair too slowly to knock the Zubat aside again, and it slammed into him, its body erupting in light for an instant as it did so. Prospero was too startled to respond as Tess said, "Zubat, Leech Life!"

Prospero felt a slight puncture, but no pain, as the Zubat's four sharp fangs sank into the back of his neck. _Bad idea_, he thought grimly as he whipped his hands behind his head and grabbed the Zubat around its middle. The Bat Pokémon struggled and bit as he pulled it off of him, but he ignored it. Wrestling the flailing creature to the arena floor, he held it pinned there for one…two…

"Three seconds!" boomed the announcer's voice. "Mr. Tori has just defeated Ms. Richard's first Pokémon, by pinning!"

Prospero stood, panting slightly, as Tess recalled the Zubat. The Zubat was more difficult than he'd expected. Not that he had thought this would be easy. It was getting harder every second as _she_ hissed inside his mind. _She_ was a warrior born, and her blood was up. He couldn't release _her_, he knew that. Not with so many around to be terrified.

It certainly was tempting, though. _She_ could have defeated the Zubat in about fifteen seconds, and without panting like he was either.

Tess pressed the button on her next Pokéball, and as his next opponent leapt out to meet him, _she_ clawed at the prison of his brain, screaming for release.


End file.
